Join our Positive Behaviour Support Team
- Article
October 29, 2024
Alma, Holly, Jennifer and Lucy make up our team of Positive Behaviour Support Leads, led by Positive Behaviour Support Manager Cameron Woodward.
But what is Positive Behaviour Support, and what do the team do?
"It's our approach to everything we do and it looks different for everyone," says Cameron.
PBS has several aims in working with service users, whether it's in child or adult services, and is the heart of our person-centred approach to care at Autism East Midlands.
Positive Behaviour Support aims to:
- Improve quality of life for service users by reducing the likelihood of challenging behaviours
- Provide active support in understanding service users and their behaviours
- Reduce restrictive practice
- Create a supportive environment and promote inclusion
- Supply additional resources for service users or students
Working with service users
As we ask the PBS team to share some of their stories, Holly gives a verbal nudge to Jennifer, who started with us eight years ago, and she shares a recent story about a service user that she has been working with.
They were extremely anxious and were presenting with challenging behaviour, with considerable difficulty coping in situations that made them uncomfortable.
"We've been making headway with this service user by helping them to identify when they are having an emotional response; so they know when they are feeling 'I don't really like that situation' and can respond to that."
"Before, they were responding purely with their emotions. Now they are more able to deal with situations as they arise and are able to cope much better."
Cameron added: "A big part of our job is reducing the likelihood of incidents before it gets to the referral stage."
"We will look at lessons learned with service users, what information we have recorded on our system and take a holistic approach. Our work may involve working with a service users' family, friends or even other health and social care professionals."
Working with support staff
Alma shares an example of a time when a service user was having many regular instances of challenging behaviour.
Looking into it more, she explored possible reasons for their anxiety and worked to facilitate better understanding for the staff that worked with the service user. Using a data-driven approach and examining past incidents, Alma started to work out how this service user might be getting anxious and how we could better support them.
"This involved quizzing the current support plan that was in place and doing some additional training with staff to reduce the chances of these situations from occuring in the future."
Although work is still ongoing, Alma was proud to report that there had been a significant decrease in incidents after she made the needed adjustments to the service users' support plan, contributing to the improved wellbeing of the service user.
Working with students
Lucy also shares how some students at Sutherland House School have come from mainstream education, and can find it overwhelming when coming to the school.
She continues to explain that a child struggling to adapt to a school environment can present as the student not engaging in their classes and may have a range of other reasons that school does not feel satisfying for them.
Lucy and the rest of the PBS support team must again ensure that the staff working with these students have the correct training and knowledge to help our students meet their outcomes.
Holly, who started with us as a Teaching Assistant, has also seen this often in her four years at Autism East Midlands.
What does working in the PBS team look like?
We have shared some examples above, but there are many more similar stories that happen across the team every week.
Cameron describes two sides of the work that they do.
"The first side is speaking to staff and service users, but the other side is at a computer, pulling data into graphs and producing reports that have to be professional and articulate. Looking at incidents on our data system, reviewing lessons learned, etc."
Although based in Nottingham, the team will visit various sites across Autism East Midlands, including Sutherland House School in Nottingham.
"The benefit of Autism East Midlands having both child and adult services is that we often get ex-students at our day services, which means that the provision of support can extend beyond their school years, and it allows us to build up our knowledge of what care is needed for the people we support."
Join the PBS team
Would you like to join us as a Positive Behaviour Support Lead, providing active support to service users and enhancing the work that we do at Autism East Midlands?
Join Cameron, Alma, Holly, Jennifer and Lucy in making a difference to the lives of our service users today.
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